


Jokes

by Servena



Series: Justice [2]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Acceptance, Coming Out, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Homosexuality, In-Jokes, Jokes, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Protectiveness, Queer!Eugene Roe, Smoking, also Liebgott/Webster if you squint, mild homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 21:19:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18599626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Servena/pseuds/Servena
Summary: In the end, even he can’t miss the kind of jokes the others make about the Doc.





	Jokes

In all honesty, it takes a while for Babe to pick up on it. He’s never been one to pay a lot of attention to his surroundings (not a good quality in a war, really, but he’s not dead yet, he’s still got time to learn), so subtle things often escape him. But he spends a lot of time with the guys, all his time really, from waking up before dawn to falling into a cot late at night (and he’s so grateful for the cot after sleeping on the cold hard ground in Holland more often than not), and in the end, even he can’t miss the kind of jokes the others make about the Doc.

The soldiers spend a lot of time pulling each other’s leg, especially when there’s nothing to do except losing money at poker and watching the same movies over and over again (in between running and getting yelled at and doing field problems over and over again), and there’s not enough alcohol to go around to really have fun. Babe has been the target of an unfavorable line more times than he can count, but he has four siblings at home, so he gives as good as he gets. But for someone who tries more than anyone to stay detached from his fellow comrades, Eugene is the butt of a lot of jokes, and especially jokes whose punchlines leave Babe puzzled.

 

One night they’re talking about their families back home, about their parents and siblings and fiancées, and one of the guys passes a photograph of their brother around. When it gets to Liebgott he takes one look at it and grins. “Oh, he’s a handsome fella. Don’t you think, Doc?”

He winks at Eugene, who just smiles and doesn’t say anything.

Another day Luz comes back from an errand to rant: “Why does the Doc always get to talk to those pretty nurses? He doesn’t even appreciate them! He should at least consider to introduce us.”

To which Eugene, when presented with this complaint, just says: “I would if I thought you’d behave”, and even Luz has to admit that they probably wouldn’t.

But the biggest commotion is caused when the Doc checks up on them in their barracks just as a few of the guys are changing after their showers. Luz, who never misses the opportunity to get a joke in, be it an appropriate time or not, quips: “You want something specific, Doc, or you just wanna see us change?”

"Yeah, at least turn around while I'm getting naked here!" Perconte shouts as he struggles to get into his underwear.

Liebgott, who’s spent the last couple of minutes trying to snag the book out of Webster’s hands to read the title, almost falls off the bed with laughter, and Muck replies: “I think he’s seen your naked ass a hundred times by now, Perco!”

"That’s different!"

The Doc just rolls his eyes at their antics and asks if they need anything.

“Some goddamn privacy!” Perconte says, which only gets him another round of laughter, because that is truly the last thing anyone could hope for in the Army.

 

“Why did you say those things?” Babe asks them after the Doc has left, apparently convinced that no one has managed to hurt themselves (yet), and everyone is properly dressed again.

“What, haven’t you heard?” Perconte says like he’s the only one who doesn’t know the sky is blue. “The Doc’s a Queer.”

Babe frowns. “Isn’t that, like, forbidden?”

Perconte shakes his head at him. “Lots of things forbidden in the Army. Like you’ve never broken the rules before.”

Babe has, and not once either, but - “Not like that, I haven’t.”

Perconte just shrugs. “It’s the way it is. Just don’t talk about it when any officers can hear you.”

 

So Babe doesn’t talk about it with anybody except for Bill, whom he asks for confirmation a few days later because it wouldn’t be the first time for the guys to take the piss out of him. But Bill just nods and says: “Half the company knows. Mostly Toccoa guys. Not the officers, though. Eh, maybe Winters, he got his ear to the ground if you know what I mean, but he ain’t gonna do nothing ‘bout it.” And at Babe’s look he adds: “Come on, you didn’t grow up in a quaint little town neither.”

Babe shakes his head. “I know there are guys like that. I just didn’t think…”

“I don’t give a shit”, Bill says before Babe can finish a sentence he doesn’t how to finish anyway. “He’s a damn good medic and we’re lucky to have him. So better keep your mouth shut, cause the guy who loses us the Doc might just get a bullet in his back as a thank you.”

 

So that’s the way it is. Babe keeps his mouth shut, but he can’t stop thinking about it. The next time one of the guys has something funny to say about it, he leaves his glass and his set of cards on the table and follows Eugene outside.

Eugene has stopped around the corner of the building, sheltered from the wind, to smoke a cigarette. Babe watches as he lights it, the way he protects the flame with his hand and then puts it between his lips to take a drag, and he can’t keep silent any longer. "You know they're just pulling your leg, right?"

Eugene glances at him and smiles slightly around the end of his cigarette before taking it out to breathe the smoke into the cool air. "Sure."

That’s probably his signal to get back inside, back to his friends and the poker game and the booze Luz managed to dig up from god knows where, but his feet won’t move. Instead he hears himself ask: "Does it bother you?" Before Eugene can answer, he continues: "Cause if it bothers you, I can make them stop. I mean, I can try, at least."

Eugene shakes his head slowly. "Nah, it don't bother me."

"Really?" Babe asks.

Eugene fixes him a look, the one he usually reserves for situations much more serious than this one. "Really."

He takes another drag of his cigarette before offering it to Babe. He takes it gratefully, sucking the smoke in deeply before he exhales.

"Actually", Eugene says after a moment of silence, "I kinda like it."

Babe raises his eyebrows in surprise. "You do?"

Eugene hums in assent. "I figure, if they can joke about it like that, they don't really mind."

"They don't" Babe says quickly, even though he can’t be sure, but he doesn’t want him to think that they do.

Eugene nods slowly. He turns his cigarette between his pale fingers for a moment, watching it glow. “But thanks for asking.”

“No problem.”

They smoke in silence for a few minutes. But Babe still feels like he has more questions than answers, until he finally blurts out: “How did you know …how did you know you were like that?” Immediately he wants to bite his tongue, didn’t his mother teach him any manners? “You don’t have to answer that”, he adds quickly.

But Eugene shakes his head. “Just did. Can’t explain how.”

“Huh”, Babe says, and he thinks back to the girl called Doris that broke up with him just before he left, and how he doesn’t think much at all about her anymore. “Aren’t you scared someone will find out? One of the officers, I mean?”

Eugene stares past the cigarette into the dark of the night. “Yeah”, he says. “I am.”

And it doesn’t feel right to Babe, a guy like Eugene, who doesn’t talk much but always radiates a quiet confidence, having to be afraid of something like that.

They finish their smokes in contemplative silence. “Thanks for the cigarette”, Babe says as he tosses the cold stub into the darkness. Eugene gives him a nod and walks off, presumably into the direction of the aid center. Babe stays a while longer, leaning against the cold wall behind him as watches him leave, not ready yet to step back into the smoke and the noise, as he keeps turning their conversation over in his head.

Before he heads back, he vows to kick the ass of any guy who can’t keep his mouth shut.


End file.
